


it's a fucking drag

by orphan_account



Category: Goyo: Ang Batang Heneral (2018)
Genre: ??? - Freeform, Enemies to Lovers, Fuckbuddies, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Requited Unrequited Love, Requited doesn't look like a word anymore, Smoking, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 14:05:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17469005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “Boyfriend?” Jacinto scoffs. He raises an eyebrow, and that’s when Vicente sees the glassy redness in his eyes, the flush on his cheeks. He thinks, good for him, and doesn’t feel bad, and then he feels bad for not feeling  bad. “Why do you think I’m here?”“To get a drink,” Vicente says lamely. Then he orders another beer.“No,” Jacinto says. The bartender pauses in the middle of taking a bottle. “Get him a martini.”-Vicente and Jacinto have one thing in common.





	it's a fucking drag

**Author's Note:**

> im actually not very confident in this one but it's decent i guess and i did spend a whole night trying to write it so,,, here :) i hope yall enjoy !!
> 
> title taken from panic! at the disco's nicotine

It first happens in a seedy little bar in the middle of the night.

The music’s thumping in Vicente’s ears. The lights are too-bright blurs floating mid-air. The room’s spinning around him. His hand is pale from how tight his grip is around the shot glass he’s holding. He throws his head back and downs his whiskey— which tastes like ass, if you ask him, but he can’t find it in himself to care— in one go and orders another beer.

Someone scoffs behind him. Vicente scowls and sways as he turns his head, and the face that greets him is mostly a haze but he can never mistake the way those lips stretch into a very specific breed of smirk for anyone else.

“Jacinto,” he says, trying to keep the poison off his tongue. Jacinto smiles at him, just as polite and just as fakely sweet and just as condescending. His posture’s disgustingly straight. Vicente figures it must be the stick shoved up his ass, considering Jacinto is a pompous, overconfident  _ bitch _ .

“Enriquez,” Jacinto says, voice light. He sits down next to him and orders a drink. Vicente, petty as he is, moves his stool a bit to the left, farther from Jacinto, who only snorts and nurses the—  _ pink _ ?— cocktail he’d bought. Vicente scowls.

Why is it that even here, he feels the need to be all— superior and classy and fancy? It makes his blood run hot.

“What are you doing here?” he mutters under his breath. His head’s spinning and the lights are too bright and the music’s too loud, and Jacinto being here— Jacinto sitting next to him and drinking his  _ fucking cocktail _ with his perfect posture and the way he lifts his pinky finger while drinking from the carafe— really isn’t helping things, because with every passing moment Vicente remembers just how  _ pretty _ Jacinto is, and he hates it, because Goyo’s always loved pretty things and Vicente will never be as pretty as Jacinto.

“I’m getting a drink,” Jacinto speaks clearly and slowly. Vicente sneers at him.

Vicente’s never liked Jacinto, because Jacinto’s way too pretty, and way too much of a dick, and he wonders just what it is that’s so  _ charming _ about it— just what it is about Emilio Jacinto that has Goyo so smitten.

“Where’s your boyfriend?” Vicente doesn’t sound bitter, because he isn’t.

“Boyfriend?” Jacinto scoffs. He raises an eyebrow, and that’s when Vicente sees the glassy redness in his eyes, the flush on his cheeks. He thinks,  _ good for him _ , and doesn’t feel bad, and then he feels bad for not feeling  bad. “Why do you think I’m here?”

“To get a drink,” Vicente says lamely. Then he orders another beer.

“No,” Jacinto says. The bartender pauses in the middle of taking a bottle. “Get him a martini.”

Jacinto pays for it, and Vicente stares. He begrudgingly accepts the drink, and then they sit there in silence and nurse their beverages, and Vicente picks at his nails and Jacinto idly scrolls through an app on his phone. Vicente dares to glance sideways purely out of curiosity. Jacinto’s looking back.

He doesn’t know how they end up stumbling out of the bar together, and he wishes he could say how why they thought it would be a good idea to make out in the backseat of a taxi cab, Vicente squirming on Jacinto’s lap and Jacinto’s hands in his hair.

It’s all a blur of hormones and adrenaline and sweet, sweet recklessness until it’s leading up to running his hands up and down Jacinto’s back as Jacinto has his mouth attached to Vicente’s neck and his collarbone and his  _ everywhere _ , sucking and kissing and biting as he rolled his lips forward and as Vicente arches his back in return.

Vicente’s got his fingers tangled in Jacinto’s hair, and he keeps his eyes on the ceiling, because maybe if he doesn’t look at Jacinto he’ll feel a little bit better about himself.

  


Much, much later, when Vicente's brain has started working again and the guilt's begun settling and he's starting to feel like a pathetic excuse for a best friend and a human being in general, he pulls on last night's wrinkled shirt that had earlier been discarded to the corner of the room. He's sure that the nausea swirling at the back of his head isn't just from the alcohol, and that the dirty, itchy feeling on and beneath his skin isn't just from the dirt and sweat and grime.

"Were you thinking of Gregorio?" Jacinto asks from where he's sitting on the bed. He’s leaning against the headboard, a cigarette caught between his index and middle fingers. He's got an annoying, unreadable smile stretched across his annoying, unreadable face. Jacinto puts the cigarette between his lips, breathes in, and  exhales.

There’s a ‘ _ were you?’ _ sitting on the tip of Vicente’s tongue, but he bites that back and settles for sneering at Jacinto instead.

"Nobody should know," he says in a low voice. His lips are pursed, his eyes narrowed as he keeps his stare locked with Jacinto’s.

Jacinto, who only laughs and takes a hit.

"What?” he says mockingly, lips stretched into a condescending grin, “That you fucked your best friend's ex, or that you were thinking about your best friend while you did it?" Jacinto then mock gasps, putting a hand over his mouth, even widening his eyes for added effect, “Not to mention— your best friend is your ex too, isn’t he?”

Vicente curls his fists and glares harder, and Jacinto is a maniac because he only laughs once again in response. 

"Relax, Enriquez," Jacinto stands up, stepping closer to Vicente, and Vicente instinctively takes a step back. Jacinto taps the stick against the ashtray and looks back at him. "How stupid do you think I am?" 

Vicente takes another step back. Jacinto's laughter fades off but his smile stays, and he holds out the cigarette. "Want a hit?"

Vicente grimaces, flipping him off before he turns to leave.

  


Vicente tells himself it’s going to be a one-time thing.

He’s not bothered, really. It had been a one-time thing, a mistake, a bad decision that nobody else is going to know about— and he intends to keep it that way. And it does go  on that way.

Life goes on. And Vicente continues to pine over Goyo, and Vicente continues to stay there by his side fling after fling, because he’s really the only one Goyo trusts enough to do all this. And Vicente continues to glare and scowl and glower at Jacinto, and Jacinto continues to stands straight and drink coffee with his pinky finger lifted up and talk to Vicente with thinly-veiled passive aggressiveness and fake politeness.

And life goes on, and Vicente doesn’t think about bars or martinis or having his face buried in Jacinto’s sheets.

  


Goyo starts going out with a girl whose name Vicente has honestly already forgotten at this point. He makes a mental tally and files her away as one of Goyo’s many flings, making a mental note to ask Julian or Joven later. But now, like the mature college student he is, he finds himself standing outside Jacinto’s dorm room.

He knocks his head against the door and questions his sanity.

The door opens, and Jacinto greets him with, “God, you’re  _ desperate, _ ”

“Shut the fuck up,” Vicente snaps, and Jacinto shrugs. He invites himself in. Jacinto’s making a face, but he steps aside anyway to give Vicente some room. The door swings shut behind Vicente, and he wonders why he’d thought this had been a good idea, why he’d even considered seeking out Jacinto in the first place.

But Jacinto steps closer and the thoughts all disappear; and Vicente finds himself looking up and waiting, wanting. Jacinto’s lips curl into that morbid little smile that’s always on his lips, and he ducks down and places his palms flat on the wall on either side of Vicente, eyes half-lidded and pupils blown and the same lazy grin on his face. Vicente opens his mouth to say something around the lines of  _ just fucking kiss me _ , but the words are caught on his throat when Jacinto’s lips are on his—

And the kiss is open-mouthed and sloppy and wet, their tongues sliding and parting like some weirdly choreographed tandem, and it should be  _ gross _ , Vicente thinks, but Vicente’s body feels like it’s on fire and he surges forward and kisses back like he’s drowning, his hands clawing at Jacinto’s shirt and the skin of his scalp stinging as Jacinto tugs on his hair.

And Vicente feels the bitterness and anger and jealousy in his chest get pushed away to the sidelines, temporarily replaced with the way his skin burns under Jacinto’s touch.

It’s oddly cathartic, in a way.

Vicente bites down on Jacinto’s bottom lip; Jacinto hisses into the kiss and pushes Vicente against the wall.

“Jesus Christ,” Jacinto says, and his lips are swollen and his cheeks are flushed and his hair is sticking out— and Vicente can’t help but revel in it a little. “Is that how you want to play it, Enriquez?”

“Shut up,” Vicente says, and Jacinto laughs and pulls his hair again.

They fuck on Jacinto’s couch, and they pull at each other’s hair and they bite and they scratch. They mock and they sneer and they scowl as the sweat rolls down their skin. Vicente glares. Jacinto condescends. Their hands leave blooming bruises and angry red marks on skin, and everything burns but Vicente lets himself get consumed by the flames.

They fuck like they’re fighting— though Vicente’s certain that fighting’s exactly what they’re doing, anyway.

  


“Did you think of Gregorio?” Jacinto asks again. He’s not smoking this time. Vicente puts on his socks, then his shoes.

Vicente tries to recall.

But as far as he knows he’d blanked out, and everything else but the burn of Jacinto’s skin on his had faded away, and there’d been nothing on his mind— nothing at all.

“No,” Vicente says honestly, and he feels shame he can’t explain bubbling in the pit of his stomach.

He and Goyo aren’t even dating— why does he feel like he cheated?

Jacinto only smiles again and hands him a slip of paper. Vicente stares at it for a moment before he takes it. He frowns down once he’s read what was written in Jacinto’s obnoxiously neat handwriting. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

Jacinto shrugs. “You might need it,”

Vicente scowls, “For what?”

“Well,” Jacinto says. He looks Vicente up and down, and Vicente’s cheeks flare despite himself, and Jacinto snorts and shakes his head, “Considering what just happened, I highly doubt this isn’t going to happen again.” His voice is smug. He’s looking at Vicente with his stupid smirk and a raised eyebrow, and it makes Vicente clench his fists and physically repress a sigh with much effort.

“Arrogant prick,” Vicente mutters; he shoves the small piece of paper into his pocket and stands up. He keeps his hard gaze on the space before him as he walks away.

“I’ll see you around, Enriquez,” Jacinto calls after him. Vicente rolls his eyes and shoves his hands in his pockets. He slams the door shut. He stares at the asphalt as he walks from Jacinto’s house all the way to the waiting shed a block away.

When Vicente gets home, he sits on the bed and opens his phone. He pulls the piece of paper out of his pocket and considers the set of digits staring back at him. Then, he opens his phone log.

He saves the number as  _ Jacinto _ . He puts his phone on the bed before he can regret it and runs his fingers through his hair at an attempt to soothe the pounding in his head. Then he goes straight to the bathroom, scrubbing until his skin is raw and sensitive under the scalding spray of shower water. It stings, stings,  _ stings _ , and he stays there until the skin of his fingers are wrinkled and his whole body is red, but when he gets out he doesn’t feel the slightest bit cleaner at all.

  


It’s always just sex.

Vicente doesn’t mind. It keeps his mind off things. It feels good. It’s convenient. Jacinto’s number is called for the sole reason of  _ Vicente is stressed and wants to hook up _ . Vicente gets calls from Jacinto for the sole reason of  _ Jacinto’s full of pent up emotions and he needs a fuck _ . And he really doesn’t mind.

  


Jacinto picks up before Vicente can talk himself out of cancelling the call. Vicente swears under his breath when he hears Jacinto’s sleep-addled voice in his earphones, a little crackly from the quality of the call, “Why are you calling in the middle of the night?”

Vicente mentally hits himself upside the head. “I don’t know,” he says, because it’s the truth. “I couldn’t sleep,”

“Well I can. Call Gregorio,”

Vicente glares even if he knows Jacinto can’t see him. “Goyong hates being woken up,” he says plainly. He hears Jacinto snort.

“So do I. Goodnight—”

“Wait!”

Jacinto doesn’t hang up at least. Vicente scrambles for something to say.

“Well?” Jacinto sounds impatient.

“I saw a movie the other day,” Vicente says. Jacinto makes a dry, sarcastic noise on the other line. Vicente rolls his eyes and ignores the offending sound, and what was supposed to be a simple, dull, mundane description of the movie he’d seen turns into him rambling over how the day had gone, and then how the following days went, until he’s narrating a detailed explanation of his entire week. Vicente talks and talks and talks, and when the clock on the wall hits half past two he stops in the middle of a summary of yesterday afternoon, because surely Jacinto must have fallen asleep by now, listening to Vicente go on and on, so he shuts up.

“Why’d you stop?”

Vicente double-takes, “I… I got tired. I think I can sleep now,”

“Okay,” Jacinto says blandly, “Good. Goodnight.”

“Good morning,”

On the other side of the call, Emilio laughs.

  


Goyo sits down across Vicente at a library table. Vicente doesn’t look at him, but the weight of Goyo’s gaze is heavy, and it makes him want to fidget in his seat. He keeps his eyes on the book he’s reading. “What is it?”

“Look at me,” Goyo says, and Vicente purses his lips and looks up. It’s exhausting trying not to squirm under Goyo’s narrowed eyes and deep frown, and Vicente can only dig his nails into his palm underneath the table. Not hard— just enough to distract him. Goyo clears his throat. “You’re hiding something from me.”

Vicente’s heart stops for a moment.

“I’m not,” he says, the skin between his eyebrows creasing.

Goyo’s frown deepens, “Don’t lie to me, Enteng.”

“I’m not,” Vicente repeats. He goes back to his book. Goyo sighs and folds his arms on top of the table, cushioning his head on them.

“You’ve been hanging out with Ilyong,”

Vicente freezes. From his peripheral, he catches Goyo narrowing his eyes even more. He can almost see the cogs turning in his head like clockwork. Vicente bites his lip and prays that the floor would swallow him alive.

“You’ve never liked Ilyong,” Goyo continues, eyebrows furrowed. “Ilyong’s never liked you. Why are you hanging out? He’s not even talking to  _ me _ —”

“I’m helping him,” Vicente blurts out, and the lie is heavy on his tongue and even heavier on his heart. “I’m helping him. Trying to get him to apologize to you. You deserve it.”

_ You deserve everything _ , Vicente thinks.  _ You don’t deserve this, _ Vicente thinks.

Goyo blinks.

“I don’t need you to do that for me,” Goyo says softly. He reaches out a hand and places it on top of Vicente’s, and Vicente’s blood runs cold and the guilt comes crashing back in waves and he needs to get out of here and  _ fast _ .

“I just need you to be here,” Goyo finishes. He’s looking Vicente right in the eye. Vicente wants to crawl into a hole and never come out. Goyo smiles weakly, “You’re my best friend.”

Vicente has never hated himself as much as he hates himself right now.

“You’re my best friend too,” he says, trying not to choke on the words. He pretends to check the clock. “I gotta go.”

He tries not to leave too fast, just to avoid suspicion, but the moment he’s out of Goyo’s line of sight, he bolts.

  


The little field behind the school is Vicente’s sanctuary.

He stares blankly at the assorted plants before him, and it’s not until someone clears their throat behind him that Vicente realizes he isn’t alone. He looks behind him, expecting to see Goyo.

“Oh, you,” he says, mildly surprised when he sees it’s Emilio with a cigarette between his lips. “Emilio,”

“Vicente,” Emilio raises an eyebrow, “Were you expecting Prince Charming?”

The tightness in Vicente’s chest comes back at the thought of Goyo, bringing along with it the guilt and the hollow kind of pain that he can’t bring himself to understand. Without thinking, he says, “He really loved you,”

“Shut the fuck up,” Emilio says, smoke spilling out of his mouth. So Vicente shuts up. Emilio sits next to him.

“He interrogated me earlier,” Vicente says.

Emilio rolls his eyes. “Stop talking about Gregorio,”

“Then what should I talk about?” Vicente says snarkily. Emilio takes another puff of the cigarette and sighs, billowing out smoke. Vicente’s eyes are drawn to the way his lips look around the stick. Emilio grins and Vicente quickly tears his gaze away.

Emilio holds out the cigarette, “Want a hit?”

Without another word, Vicente takes it.

They sit there and smoke and stare at the grass and occasionally talk, and maybe sometimes Vicente looks at Emilio, and maybe sometimes Emilio looks back.

The cigarette eventually runs out, of course. Emilio crushes it under his shoe and moves to get another one from his pocket. Vicente grabs his wrist and shakes his head, then surges forward to take Emilio’s lips in his.

Emilio makes a soft, surprised noise before he’s putting his hands on Vicente’s shoulders and tilting his head and deepening the kiss. He tastes like smoke and bad decisions and a toxic drug that Vicente knows he won’t be able to quit.

He pushes Vicente down until the latter’s lying on the grass, before he breaks away.

 And Vicente’s cheeks burn, and he looks with half-lidded eyes at Emilio who’s straddling him in the abandoned field behind the school. He swallows.

“I don’t think I want to get laid behind the school,” he says. Emilio laughs, and it’s loud and it's free and it doesn't sound condescending at all. 

“Not everything is about sex, Vicente,” he snickers, getting off of him and sitting back on the grass. But he's giving Vicente a skeptical stare, “But are you sure you aren't into-”

Vicente sits up and smacks him lightly on the shoulder. Emilio just laughs. 

“We can just sit here,” Emilio says, “Talk.  Make out a little more,”

 “Okay. Who are you?”

Emilio gives Vicente a dry stare. It's Vicente's turn to laugh.

In the end they sit there and talk, and maybe make out a little more. 

  


Vicente’s phone rings in at around eight PM on a Saturday. The caller I.D. says  _ Ilyong _ . Vicente bites down hard on his lower lip and picks up.

“I’m coming over,” is all Vicente manages to hear, and before he gets a chance to process the words he gets hung up on. He stares at the phone and sighs and figures all he can do is to wait. He plays with his phone for about five minutes or so, but when that fails to keep him entertained he watches TV instead.

He only ends up staring blankly at the drama playing onscreen, his complete attention dedicated to waiting for the doorbell to ring. Vicente wrings his wrists. His knee’s bouncing up and down. He keeps glancing at the doorway. He doesn’t even know why he’s so nervous.

The doorbell rings. Vicente stands and leaves to open the door, invite his guest in.

Emilio kisses him as soon as the door is open, and his hands are on Vicente’s face, and his lips are soft and Vicente doesn’t feel like he’s burning for once— and when his eyes slip shut and his hands cling to Emilio’s shoulders Vicente feels warm.

He breaks away, head spinning, fear starting to curl around his gut, “What is this?”

“It’s what it is,” Emilio answers simply, and he kisses Vicente again. He doesn’t put his fingers in Vicente’s hair. He doesn’t slip his hands under Vicente’s shirt. Ilyong searches for Vicente’s hand, and he laces their fingers together and doesn’t break away.

  


There’s a strange intimacy about lying in bed together after sex.

Vicente’s never done it with Ilyong— not before this one, where they’re under the covers and basking in the afterglow. He glances over, and notices how beautiful Ilyong looks when his skin’s shrouded by the slivers of moonlight filtering past the blinds.

There’s guilt, and there’s shame, but they’re distant, overpowered by the presence of Ilyong next to him— and Vicente doesn’t quite know how to feel about that. He stares at the ceiling.

“Stop thinking,” Ilyong mutters. “It’s annoying.”

“I think I fucked up,” Vicente says. Ilyong shifts so that he’s looking at Vicente properly, one eyebrow raised.

“Save it for tomorrow,” Ilyong says, “This is a limited time offer.”

There’s a strange intimacy about Ilyong gently pressing his lips to Vicente’s shoulder before curling up next to him, eyes fluttering shut. Vicente can’t decide if he loves it or hates it.

He goes to sleep.

  


The next morning goes like this: Vicente and Ilyong have breakfast. Granted, it’s slightly burnt pancakes and bad coffee. They don’t talk about last night. But they don’t condescend either. Vicente smiles. Ilyong smiles. Vicente feels like a decent human being.

Then he tells Ilyong what he’d told Goyo.

Ilyong says, “Oh,”

Then Ilyong says he has to leave, and he doesn’t call Vicente at all, and Ilyong doesn’t pick up when Vicente calls. Vicente stares at his phone and tries to call throughout the weekend. Ilyong doesn’t block him. Ilyong doesn’t answer either.

Monday throughout Wednesday goes like this: Vicente trips a lot. He has corned beef for lunch on Monday, sisig for Tuesday, and adobo for Wednesday. He doesn’t see Ilyong. Goyo’s observably a bit happier; maybe it’s because Vicente’s finally hanging out with them more. He spends a lot of time in the library or looking for Ilyong. Vicente tries to call more. Vicente wants to apologize.

Vicente misses him. 

Vicente narrates all of this to a voicemail that doesn’t ask him why he’d stopped rambling. Instead, it cuts him off in the middle of talking about what had happened Tuesday lunch, when Joven had gotten sick because Julian dared him to eat too many cheese fries.

  


Goyo and Ilyong are spotted uncomfortably close on Thursday. Vicente’s sitting with Joven just a few meters away, eating kikiam peacefully like close friends do.

Joven spots them first. “They’re back together?”

Vicente pauses mid-chew and glances behind him.

“I guess you’re right,” Vicente says, and it feels like his chest’s gotten hit by a hundred thousand steel arrows, or his heart’s been crushed under the insurmountable weight of a boulder, and he doesn’t think it should hurt  _ this _ much but it does. He presses his lips together. He looks up at the sky and takes a deep breath the moment his eyes start prickling. “Good for them,”

Joven’s quiet for a few moments, trying to formulate a response.

“Why do good people… always choose the wrong people to love?” he finally asks.

Vicente purses his lips in thought.

He’s always wondered why he always falls in love with men he’ll never reach; Goyo’s never been anyone’s— not really. And maybe Ilyong has always been Goyo’s. And maybe Vicente’s just meant to be everyone’s.

In the end, he just shrugs. “I guess it’s because we choose the love we think we deserve,”

He sees them looking his and Joven’s way, and he forces a smile and waves.

**Author's Note:**

> me: gives up on writing in Filipino because I just end up butchering it in the end. 
> 
> leaves comments or kudos if you want theyre cool skdkks


End file.
